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I am having a cooking day at the weekend and I know it must seem like I'm really lazy in the week, but I want as much as poss to be ready to just re-heat. I'm going to make some spag bol, chilli, curry, couple of soups etc and was wondering whether I could cook and then freeze the pasta. (I will be doing the rice as well, but I've done that before and it works.) I just know that if it's not all 'packaged up' I will probably think 'I can't be bothered getting the pasta out of the cupboard and cooking it for a whole 10 mins!' which I know sounds daft, but I just want to see how far I can go with this 'cooking twice a month' thing.

I have a plastic thingy (sorry there must be a better word for it than thingy ) that I cover it with and it still over cooks. Perhaps others have had better experiences, but I'd definitely recommend cooking once it's defrosted.

it's just 2 big onions (i prefer red) and 3 cloves garlic and i sweat them, then add 2 tins of tomatoes and then i had in a big spoonful of honey and some salt/pepper/chives/papkrica and let it simmer for about 20mins then blend it smooth with my stick blender

theres 5 of us (2 adults 3 kids) and this does us about 5 meals and is soooo cheap

or i do a cheese sauce which is just thinned philly, with garlic powder (i do love my garlic) and chives, i only do this if we decide to have pasta for lunch tho cause it's only 2 of us at lunch time and i can make as little or as much of this as i want

You buy pasta based frozen ready meals which you have to reheat so I dont see why you cant reheat it x

Sealed Pot Challenge member #982
In 2012 I pledge to:- Save £1 a day, meal plan, be more organised, have NSDs, set myself a budget AND STICK TO IT, throw all loose change into Sealed Pot and not open it till 29th November.

Oh I just had leftover pasta for lunch, mixed with green pesto, tinned tuna, red pepper, black olives and a bit of cheese. Raided the fridge! Once I cooked too much spag and hm sauce and just froze it all mixed and chopped up together. The children ate it no problem (DS1 is very fussy, if it wasn't okay he would have said). HTH

You can re-heat pasta, no problems at all. It might be that the pasta absorbs the sauce quite abit, so it might be classed as abit rubbery IYSWIM.

When I make pasta and sauce type things. I always make more than necessary and freeze in portions. Then defrost and spread out on a flat dish and sprinkle with grated cheese again. It turns out just fine.

If its plain pasta you can spoon over a teaspoon of oil and shake around this stops the pasta sticking together.

This may not be you cup of tea as its not cooking from scratch by any means, but I use the condensed campbells soup as sauce, (currently 2 of £1 in Tesco's) Only dilute by 1/3rd of a tin to make sauce.

Olive oil, chilli flakes or powder and one or two cloves of minced garlic in a wide bottomed pan or frying pan, warm gently and turn up heat after a minute or two, add pasta and season well - particularly salt - and cook until pasta is hot, stirring continuously. Add chopped parsley if available and serve with fresh parmesan on top. Scrape the bottom of the pan too - the crusty bits are the best bite

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It's what is inside your head that matters in life - not what's outside your window

as you seem to like tuna perhaps you would like this cold pasta dish.
Prawn Pasta.
to your cold pasta add some cooked prawns, some mayo or salad cream or a mix of both, tomato ketchup -enough to make it a pretty pink colour, some salt and pepper to taste and a dash of worstershire sauce.
mix well and chill!
delicious with a green salad and crusty bread - or on a baked potato!

We often freeze cold pasta and make double batches of meals to store in the freezer for busy weeks.

1) For plain pasta we run the freshly cooked additional pasta under the cold tap to cool it before putting it into the freezer. To cook, I take it straight from the freezer & drop it into boiling water for 6-10 minutes.
2) For freezer meals (lasagne, stroganoff casserole, pasta bakes) I defrost them and heat them in the oven for about an hour (until piping hot)

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